It's well-acknowleged by now that our personal data is, for the most part, out there, floating around to be collected by advertisers, social networks, and our government, just to name a few.
Inspired (or more likely troubled) by our increased online exposure, designers Xuedi Chen and Pedro Oliveira created x-pose, a wearable top that exposes skin in real-time, based on the amount of personal data the wearer is transmitting via bluetooth through their smartphone. The top's panels fluctuate between various levels of opacity, slowly revealing or obscuring what's underneath.
Here's how Chen and Olivera describe the project on their Behance artist page:
We have already ceded control of our digital data emissions, x.pose goes a step further to broadcast the wearer's data for anyone and everyone to see.
These displays are divided up into patches that represent neighborhoods and change in opacity depending on the wearer's current location. If she is in the NYU neighborhood, that area will be the most active, pulsing, revealing her current location, revealing the fact that her data is being collected and at the same time exposing her skin. As her data emissions are collected, the more transparent and exposed she will become.
A wearable, provocative, 3-D printed, big-data inspired commentary about online data emissions? Welcome to the future.
